Someone Who Gets It
After the weeks of never-ending hate mail we have been receiving from Moore fans, it was an absolute delight to receive this one from C. Chrisp of Alberta, Canada.
Dear Jim and Lee;
I just watched ‘Sicko’ this weekend and I enjoyed it. Before you delete this email and thereby execute ties with a new supporter of yours, please note that I feel the need to explain why I enjoy Moore’s films before I start my tirade (which is surprisingly not directed at either of you, but rather toward the hate-filled rageaholics who festively decorate your inbox with colourful language and inventive grammar).
Let me begin by saying that I am a 26 year-old Canadian woman, and I don’t agree with everything Moore said about our healthcare system. Everyone I know has endured sickeningly long waits, and I myself have camped in hospital waiting rooms for hours at a time. The shortest I have ever spent in an ER waiting room is an hour and a half. I’ve never been sent away or denied treatment, but our system is by no means perfect. People are misdiagnosed here, too. Doctors are overworked and underpaid, and it’s not uncommon for me to have to remind my family doctor which member of my family I am, because a sixteen-hour shift can make his brain a mite fuzzy.
Michael Moore has presented his version of the facts in a few films now, popularizing a new style of documentary. For that, I curtsy in his general direction.
I have always been a fan of the documentary in its many forms, but find that a poorly executed documentary can be a bit of a snoozefest. Thus, it was with a sense of amused relief that I watched ‘Bowling for Columbine’ in 2002, because it was the first entertaining documentary I had ever seen. Others have followed, including “Supersize Me,” which was another entertaining, alternative view of the ‘facts’ we are more commonly fed by the mass media.
So yes. I like being entertained while I watch my documentaries, and Moore does that in spades. I fully agree that he has dumbed his shamelessly biased central messages down to a digestable pablum for the masses, but I don’t agree that I am a moron for watching his films. My opinion is simply that he feels passionate enough about certain issues to create these films, and he goes about convincing us in the same way the media does - using any angle or technique that will wrangle the populace over to his side. Moore’s need to take his interviewees on a wee fieldtrip in every film he makes is becoming insulting to my intelligence, though (try the zoo, next time, Mikey - it’s less likely to get your friends shot at).
I joined the lineup to your site after seeing ‘Sicko,’ because I wanted to see what you were all about before I decided to hate you. After reading a few pages on your site, I sensed a certain democracy in your intentions, and that is where you’ve earned my support. You are simply holding Moore’s feet to the fire, making him aware that he is and ever will be questioned on his facts. This is what democracy is all about! Free speech is great, but so is the freedom to question what is being said. All you’re asking for is some balance, and while your site may not be suitable for the kiddies, at least you’re honest and referenced!
To address the less-objective of my fellow Moore fans out there, I can only apologize to you as a person would for the drunken uncle at Thanksgiving. I’m sorry that so many of us are of the “shoot first and ask questions later” variety. I wish we read enough to know that Moore called before his film was released to identify himself as the source of the “anonymous” donation, and that Jim was respectful enough to thank him SEVERAL times for his help. I wish we would understand that the money was not a bribe to be silent forever more, and that taking the money is what ANYONE in Jim’s situation would do, source be damned. These “how could you!?” responses you’ve been getting on your site are a pathetic joke. How could he NOT? is the question I would ask these people.
I laughed wholehearteldly at that crazy ALL CAPS, APESHIT-CRAZY RANT from the loopy Mia Jones, and the response about Hippocrates had me giggling for at least a few seconds longer. She had to use the death of her child to try and guilt you into some sort of...what? Fear of her and her craziness? At least you are asking important questions instead of just sitting back and nodding your head! You actually source your information, and so it’s clear to this little Liberal that you two are not talking out of your backsides. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Mrs. Jones and her violent husband.
That said, I wanted to write to support you because I think that what you’re doing is important. I think that Moore’s work is important in that it reveals another side of a given issue. His arguments are by no means all-inclusive, but humans being what they are, it can be difficult to remain objective on issues one feels strongly about. Also, notoriety sells. Make the grass look as green as possible on the other side, and people will begin to crap on their own lawns, so to speak.
The beauty of freedom is that we can say our piece and other people can disagree with us. One problem with Moore dumbing down the facts is that people like you will get hate mail from god-fearin’, gun-totin’ HIPPOCRATES who want to unleash unholy hell on you for asking important questions.
I suppose the point of this small novel I’ve written is to express my heartfelt sympathy that your cause has to contend with people who are too stupid to realize that important issues are more like a die than a coin, and that condemning you to a hell you don’t even believe in with craploads of profanity only serves to fortify your point in all of this, as well as your opinion that Moore fans are at least partially retarded.
We need you two to round out the argument and debate, and hell - you’re at least as entertaining as Michael Moore.
Kind regards;
C. Chrisp
Allow me to make one point explicitly clear. People are not inherently morons for watching Moore’s films. They’re not morons for agreeing with what he says. What qualifies them as “Moore-ons” is when they passionately, utterly accept what he says as being the gospel truth, yet have no ability to defend their own beliefs other than to say that Michael Moore told them it was true. Disagree with Jim and I all you like, that’s the pure essence of free speech. But be able to do so intelligently, with the facts on your side, rather than simply accepting the word of a portly propagandist.
People who implicitly trust and believe everything Michael Moore says are just as bad, if not worse, than people who implicitly trust and believe George W. Bush. At least Bush has the degree of trust implied by the office he holds, where as Moore has, what, a known track record of gross lies and distortions throughout his entire career, beginning with the Flint Voice and his brief stint at Mother Jones, then culminating in his stream of Leni Reifenstahl-like propaganda movies promoting the all-seeing, all-powerful benevolence of government. (Unless it’s in matters like war and defense, which have been regarded since the beginning of time as legitimate functions of government.)
As I’ve said a million times, people who write us calm, intelligent letters will be responded to with calm, intelligent responses. (As much as possible, anyway—answering every email we receive, good or bad, would be a full-time job.) People who send us hate-fill diatribes, especially those filled with errors in grammar, spelling, and fundamental sentence structure, will be posted with names and emails to be publicly ridiculed.
On a personal note, thank you to C. Chrisp for “getting” what is it Jim and I are trying to do here. It’s a rare pleasure.
Update As if right on queue, here’s another email from another Canadian, named Tim.
Greetings from Canada:
My name is Timothy and I am a journalism student in Calgary, Alberta, Canada; and I just wanted to say a few things.
I was first introduced to Michael Moore about 6 years ago in high school when our social studies teacher made the whole class watch ‘Downsize This’. I had a few laughs, learned a few things which I believe are factual. Whatever, I was young.
Now that I’ve matured a little, I see things in a slightly different perspective. Basically, a “documentarian” is a news reporter; however, the documenter has more power than a simple news reporter in the sense that they have total control of the flow of information in their piece of work. They can also easily abuse that power--as Michael Moore does.
One of the first things they teach you in the ‘Journalism Arts’ program at my school is ethics in journalism. The big ethical issue that Michael Moore constantly breaks is that he not only appears in his documentaries, he becomes influential in a way that becomes in favour of his bias. Basically, he does not document the subject, he becomes part of the subject.
As Mr. Wiseman points out, in this sense, Moore is more of an entertainer. Perhaps, Moore’s films may be entertaining, but alot of people mistake entertainment for a legitimate documate documentary.
Also, in the case of him sending you that money anonymously, he really crossed the line of ethical. People don’t understand that Moore didn’t send you money out of the kindness of his heart: he did it to once again influence the subject of the film in his favour. He has all of America thinking that, “ooh, Michael Moore is so generous” and “that moorewatch.com guy is horrible and unthankful for Michael Moore’s generosity,” etc, etc… It really puts you in an unfair situation.
I am not fooled. People really need to be more aware of Moore’s unrelentless disregard for ethics.
Don’t let the hate mail trouble you, some people (like I) do understand your situation.
-A journalism student
Two for two. Can we hit the trifecta?
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